During the past several months, you may have noticed full-page ads in the Times News and other daily newspapers giving notice to four joint resolutions that propose amendments to the Pennsylvania Constitution.

If you stopped to look them over, you might have come to the erroneous conclusion that they have something to do with the Nov. 3 General Election.

Several friends who saw them asked me whether they are going to be on the ballot. The answer is “no.” These resolutions were passed, mostly along party lines, during the current legislative session, but they have to be passed again in the coming session, which begins on Dec. 1.

If any or all survive this legislative gantlet, then we voters will get a yes-or-no shot at them in an election after passage.

This cumbersome process is by design to head off kneejerk reaction and to give our legislative leaders (and ourselves, for that matter) an opportunity to reflect on making key changes to this most important document.

If you saw these ads, you can be excused for declining to plod through the tiny print and the legalistic prose that can be a quick turnoff. One sentence rambles on for 96 words; sentences of 60 or more words are commonplace. This comes in an era where our attention span is slightly above zero.

If I were of a conspiratorial mind, I might think that our leaders are trying to discourage us from reading and understanding the contents of these resolutions. But, fear not, my faithful readers: Your intrepid emissary has done the dirty work and labored through the nearly 2,000 words and now will try to interpret and make sense of them.

In a nutshell, these resolutions would:

• Require candidates for lieutenant governor to run on the same ticket as gubernatorial candidates in the primary. As it is now, lieutenant governor candidates are nominated in the primary separately from gubernatorial nominees, but then they run as a team in the general election. This means it is possible to have candidates who are not compatible with each other as we saw with Democrats Gov. Tom Wolf and Lt. Gov. Mike Stack during Wolf’s first term.

• Allow district justices to stand for retention just as other judicial candidates do after being elected to a first full term. These justices serve six-year terms, and as it is now they must run for re-election just like other nonjudicial candidates.

• Limit a governor’s disaster declaration to 21 days rather than the current 90 days. Any extension would require approval by the General Assembly. A separate section of this resolution would provide protection against racial and ethnic discrimination, a no-brainer in a modern society.

• Elect the justices of the state’s three appellate courts by district rather than statewide.

These last two are not changes to be taken lightly. I believe it is fair to say that both are motivated by Republican anger and frustration, especially at the way Wolf has handled stay-at-home and other restrictive orders surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic.

Wolf’s emergency declaration that gave him exceptional powers starting in March and renewed twice after that has infuriated most Republican and some Democratic lawmakers.

They have accused Wolf of being dictatorial and creating an adverse business climate in the state because of the lockdown of nonessential businesses. Prime among these are restaurants, hotels and related businesses. They also accuse him of not being consistent on which businesses were compelled to close vs. others that had essentially the same merchandise but were given exceptions to remain open.

When the Republicans took legal action against Wolf to end the emergency declaration, the state Supreme Court sided with Wolf.

Some political analysts say that this, along with the court’s overturning of the Republican redistricting map two years ago that gave Democrats parity in the state’s congressional delegation brought about the retaliatory resolution to have justices of the appellate courts elected by district. Such a move would likely result in the election of more Republican statewide judges.

Five of the seven state Supreme Court justices were elected as Democrats; one - Chief Justice Thomas Saylor - was elected as a Republican, and one was appointed by Wolf.

Judicial candidates can cross-file. When they seek retention, however, they appear on the ballot in a nonpartisan designation rather than under a party banner.

By Bruce Frassinelli | tneditor@tnonline.com